Examples of Personalization as Identity

A closer look at how Personalization became the Signature Move for India's D2C Brands

Author

Saurabh Kumar
June 06, 2025

Hi, I’m Saurabh👋. I write in-depth analyses on the growth of popular companies. I cover their early-growth strategies, current growth levers, and the business-building lessons we can learn from them.

Plus, every Friday, I bring you a 3-minute email on one powerful growth strategy that fuels the world’s greatest companies. Join the growing community of readers from Uber, Amazon, Flipkart, and BlinkIt getting byte-sized growth strategies weekly.

Read time: 3 minutes 34 seconds

Today’s edition is all about examples.

Examples of how brands craft personalization playbooks and make customers love them even more.

But before we get to that, let’s understand why personalization matters so much. Feel free to skip and jump to the examples if you're convinced already.

The strategic value of personalization

  • Increases willingness to pay: People pay 2X-3X more for shampoo bottles if it’s formulated for their scalp. They say, “It’s made for me.”

  • Builds emotional lock-in: Personalization creates identity alignment: people feel like they’re not just buying a product, they’re co-creating it. They say, “It’s not a journal, it’s my journal (of course, it has dusty stickers all over it)”

  • Reduced design fatigue: Personalization narrows down choice. It gives customers what they want, faster

  • Builds a moat: When customers co-create with you, they are less likely to switch.

Which industry does it work best for?

Personalization is best suited for industries where the product is more like a mirror. It isn't just functional but also signals something about the user. It reflects who we are, what we like, and how we want to be seen. You’ll see this playing out in fashion, tech gadgets, stationery, home decor, fitness, gaming, and gifting perfectly.

So now… let’s get to what we all love:

Examples. Examples. Examples.

Fashion and Footwear

Nike

Nike carved its niche through deep product personalization with "Nike By You," letting users design every element of their shoes. Starting from performance footwear, today they tap into expression and ownership. I found this great video on their page that shows personalization options at their Seoul store. Great stuff!

DailyObjects

DailyObjects spotted an opening between bland corporate accessories and overdesigned mass-market covers. Their niche is built around aesthetically driven personalization for India’s rising mass-premium segment. Their class-apart iPhone covers are pure design moodboards. A standout example is their collaboration with Cartergii, which visually narrates the introspective journey of a robot discovering its own humanity.

Mokobara

Mokobara’s artist collabs bring color to their signature black rectangle on their bags. Mokobara positions itself as a design movement (read more about it here), and personalization takes it a notch up. Check out this aspirational art on the Mokobara bag from @mosaicbyrenu

TheMessyCorner

TheMessyCorner broke out by personalizing something deeply tied to identity: the passport. While other gifting brands leaned on mugs and photo frames, The Messy Corner leaned into functional personalization for travel. Their passport cover today is a status symbol for the new-age travellers

Macmerize

Macmerize started with iPhone covers, but added a twist: a built-in stand. The combination of personalization and functionality hit a sweet spot for creators, commuters, and multitaskers. Their recent addition has been an AI feature that lets users generate phone cover designs from prompts. Basically, personalization layered with imagination.

Beauty & Skincare

Bare Anatomy

Bare Anatomy redefined what "good hair" means per person. Their entry wedge was science-backed, quiz-led personalization, layered with product aesthetics that signal clinical + cool. 

Gaming

Zepeto

Zepeto carved a niche by letting users build avatars that mirrored their IRL selves in eerie detail. Unlike stylized games, Zepeto focused on realism, identity, and fashion. It’s basically digital mirroring clubbed with a way of self-reinvention.

Fortnite

Fortnite’s genius is in real-time cultural personalization. From Travis Scott concerts to Marvel skins, they don’t sell you a character, they sell you a moment. The Travis Scott skin, for example, was a limited-time purchase, making it a collector's item for fans

Gifting & Stationary

Bigsmall

Bigsmall found its niche in hyper-specific gifting. From quirky fridge magnets to sunglasses covers and tiny table lamps, their range adds some extra swag to your identity

OyeHappy

Oyehappy is all about choreographing experiences. Their niche is experiential gifting where the recipient’s name is baked into the journey (like treasure hunts or naming a star for your loved one)

Until next time! 👋

Saurabh

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